fun thing: picnik

i am addicted to modifying photos using picnik – especially since every social network requires you to have some kind of avatar for you profile.

picnik is free and doesn’t require you to register (though there are some perks if you do). you can crop and rotate and fix colours (you can even use curves), as usual, but picnik also allows you to add filters to your photos, text, funny pix, and frame things in a bunch of different ways.

so you can make a boring picture like this:

look like this:

(there’s lots more you can do – i just wanted to give you a rough idea. this was cropped, rotated, had the Orton-ish effect applied, speech bubble and text added, and i gave myself a loverly ‘stache.)

lady laptops

i’m not sure how i feel about dell’s foray into lady laptops – Della.

i mean, i really like pretty things, and i am always attached to an internet-enabled device, so i am not averse to lappys that come in something other than ibm-black or apple-silver. (and yes, the Vivienne Tam HP Mini would make me giddy.)

i think what really got to me were the photos on the site.


exhibit a

who doesn’t bring their lappy to the beach? with their BFFs?
and make sure their lappy matches their sarong.
also, vacation FAIL.

exhibit b

oh puhleese, there’s no way you’re getting a wifi connection out there.


so women with laptops are all havin’ fun with their sistahs or communing with nature.
got it, i think.
wait, huh?

cil2009 – an anniversary of sorts

just arrived at CiL after a pretty bumpy ride on what must have been air canada’s teeniest plane.

off to a good start as i finally got to meet the awesome Karen Schneider while waiting for our shuttle to the hyatt.

this time last year, i was still in school and decided, on one crazy afternoon, to attend CiL. everyone was tweeting about it and it just sounded like a great place to talk to real live librarians about tech in libraries.

i got a gig coordinating the quickie talks in the exhibit hall in exchange for free registration. the lovely Krista let me bunk with her despite not knowing me (at all). and all the tweeps were wonderfully welcoming to me and let me be their groupie for the entire conference. it was incredible.

one year later a lot has changed, but i am still as excited as i was last year (and i’m still bunking with Krista, and i still feel like a groupie). it’ll be different  now that i have a gig and can critically assess ideas and their usefulness at mpow (as opposed to last year when i was just taking it all in becaues i wasn’t sure where i would end up working). i’m really looking forward to stealing everyone’s ideas learning about new services and possibly implementing them chez moi.

oh, i’m also REALLY looking forward to getting my hands on a LSW Shover & Maker button!

i love this quote

In order to be really good as a librarian, everything counts towards your work, every play you go see, every concert you hear, every trip you take, everything you read, everything you know. I don’t know of another occupation like that. The more you know, the better you’re going to be. – Allen Smith, PhD

i found this quote via a shared item from my friend Wendy Brown (who took me bowling once at this awesome place in Jamaica Plains), but it’s originally from the Bilingual Librarian blog.

i think this may be a reason i am so happy in this profession – everything matters.

shoving, making and why the LSW rocks

so the excellent folks of LSW (especially Steve & Josh) have decided that though Library Journal’s Movers & Shakers list is a great way to get the word out about awesome things folks are doing (and you know, i ain’t gonna knock it), there are even more folks out there doing things that are worthy of attention, and have created the LSW Shovers & Makers award.

i think this award is incredibly important in libraryland.

librarians need to tell people what they do. i am constantly amazed by what the intelligent people in my community think i do all day (turns out, very little). we need to tell people what we do so that people realize how we can help them, and just how important librarians are.

now i know some peeps out there are going to say that because you nominate yourself as a Shover & Maker, it means less. well, as my dad would say, malarkey! nominating yourself, putting yourself forward as someone who does good and interesting things, is exactly what many of us do daily in our libraries.

• we start new projects and revive dying ones (or we pull the plug on the ones that should’ve died with the card catalogue).
• we are enthusiastic about the future of libraries and are not afraid to change. (or stay the same – don’t reinvent the wheel/if it ain’t broke don’t fix it/[insert other old-timey saying here]!)
• we are realistic about the constraints on our resources, but channel our inner libpunk to try and provide exceptional results.

so to all the Shovers & Makers who have yet to add their profile to the site – i’m calling you out. come out of hiding and declare yourself worthy of the LSW honour! because if you think you’re worthy, then you are.

do eeeeeeeeeeeet.

adieu uncontrolled vocabulary

the awesome Greg Schwartz has decided to put his show, Uncontrolled Vocabulary, on hiatus.

this saddens me because the show was one of the first LIS-related but non-library school things i discovered out there on the intertubes. talking about real life LIS issues! getting the dirt on new tech and how it might actually apply to librarians! listening to LIVE LIBRARIANS! amazing!

so to Greg, i have this message: i owe you much. listening to that first episode of UnVocab was one of those “OMG i made the right decision in becoming a librarian” moments.

you rock.

do things that scare you

such as present at a workshop where you’re on the slate with seasoned veterans like Stephen Abram and Michael Stephens.

i would say that i am fairly comfortable presenting in front of a group. we do a lot of teaching at my branch, so i have had a lot of practice explaining somewhat complicated things to folks.

i also read up on presenting (slide:ology and presentation zen are two recent faves) and while i don’t consider myself as proficient with powerpoint as Larry Lessig, i certainly don’t force my audience to suffer “death by powerpoint”. or as Dorothea puts it, “i don’t think i’ve ever wasted the audience’s time”.

so though i’m okay speaking to  people, and know that my presentations are, for the most part, not-so-bad, being asked to speak at this workshop was still scary.

scary because…

• both Stephen and Michael know how to engage an audience.
• i wasn’t presenting at some far-off  conference to peeps that i will only ever see again at another conference. i was presenting to local librarians and library school students – my colleagues and friends!
• i didn’t get to rehearse nearly as much as i had hoped (note to self: your procrastinatory skills are epic. you must fix this).

but scary is good. scary makes you try harder. scary makes you prepare better (plz to disregard my 3rd point above). scary makes you try things. scary pushes you to do something!

and then the next time you do it, it’s less scary. and then the next time, even less scary. and so on, and so on…

so how have you scared yourself lately? (alright alright, use “challenged” if that sounds better in your head.) i am well aware that it is easier to say you are going to do something new than to actually do it.

what if a double-dawg dare you?

take your 25 things and…

… listen to this podcast.

 Standard Podcast [4:16m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (187)

(thanks to my associate producer jason for advice)

UPDATE: thanks to the always-awesome jason, i fixed this. should work now.

in another life…

… i worked in the newsroom of a major metropolitan daily.

the site Stuff Journalists Like – is very accurate. especially post 3. i was a starving student (okay, not starving, but the lowest paid in the room) and even i knew that the food at the election night buffet was for everyone working that night and i shouldn’t fill up tupperware and keep it at my desk.

also, i wore shoes at work. can’t say the same for all of the editors ; )

sept choses meme: things you don’t know about me

no one tagged me but we all know how much i love a bandwagon – there’s a meme going around…

here are seven things you might not know about me.

1. i can sing the alphabet backward as easily as i can forward. i was a bored child and took to reading books backward once i had read them the “proper”. if you buy me a beer i’ll even serenade you with “mary had a little lamb” backward. if you want me to do this on karaoke night, it’ll cost you more than one beer.
2. i can read hebrew (with the vowels, pls) and russian but have no idea what i’m saying.
3. i was in a “reverse-integration” (holy gawd i hate that term) program in grade five where i was lucky enough to go to Mackay Centre with kids with various physical disabilities as well as share a building with a deaf school. my sign language, at the moment, is atrocious.
4. my cousin is a bit of a rock star in quebec. for the record, i hated him between the ages of 9 and 13 because he was always being told how awesome he was for being able to sing so well. now, however, i think he’s a big sweetheart.
5. this was the first gizmo i ever used to get on the internet. (actually, my uncle had a coupler so i could get on it at his house, but this was the first thing we had chez nous.) my parents had no idea how to work it. i won a samantha fox cassette answering a quiz on a bulletin board.
6. i was on the opening crew of the Disney Wonder and loved everything about it. i trained at Disney World for a month (working in the Magic Kingdom). then was flown to the Fincantieri shipyard in Venice to pick up the ship and sail it first to Southhampton (where Sir Richard Branson sponsored an “open ship” event and we had the most amazing fireworks EVER), then to Porta Delgada in The Azores, then across the Atlantic Ocean for a week (sans guests) to home port in Port Canaveral, FL. i sailed through hurricanes and worked with 3 year olds. i consider this some of the best management experience i’ve ever had and actually feel the company gives (some of ) their employees an awful lot of autonomy to make people happy. cult-like corporate culture, i eats it up.
7. due to my diastema, i have amazing accuracy when spitting water out through my two front teeth. i love knowing that i share a bar trick with the Wife of Bath, Cleopatra, and Madonna.

according to the rules of this meme – i have to tag seven peeps. so here ya go!

1. jason puckett
2. david rothman
3. jan dawson
4. graham lavender
5. steven cohen
6. jason hammond
7. anna creech